Very little is known about Catherine’s family beyond her immediate family. If you know any of these people or have information that could help our family connect with our Polish relatives, please contact me!
One thing of note up front, although Catherine Nescior was born in a region that is now Poland (Jaroslaw is within the Subcarpathian Voivodeship), there was no country called “Poland” at the time. Instead, Jaroslaw was within the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, a semi-autonomous province that was part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire.
According to the oral tradition of the family, her father was born in Kiev, Ukraine and fled to Jaroslaw (at the time, part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to escape the Tsarist conscription. Once settled in Jaroslaw, he met Anna Burham. Together, Michol and Anna had four children, Michael, Fredrick, Anna and Catherine. Catherine’s sister Anna carried the married name of “Nowak”, according to my father and my uncle. This name also appears writte on the backs of several of the cards and letters the family received from Poland. Michael and Fredrick were both killed in World War II. I had lengthy discussions with my father and his brother Walter about our family in Poland and Catherine corresponded with them regularly until her death in 1954. After that the correspondence continued for some time, but eventually the families lost touch in the late 1950’s or early 1960’s. As Catherine died before I was born, all of what I know is based on their memories and these photographs and letters.
The Dadushka’s were close family friends and the godparents of my Uncle Walt. According to Walter, Mr. and Mr.s Dadushka lived in Georgia in the late 1800’s. Tsar Nicholas II was building up an army because he wanted to secure a sea passage through the Dardanelles as a southern outlet for Russian goods. The Dadushka’s lived in Odessa. When the Tsar enacted the draft to increase the number of able-bodied men to go to war with Turkey, the family fled the Ukraine by walking from Odessa to Danzig, on the Baltic Sea. That’s a space of about 1500 miles. They were sleeping in fields at night, or in someones shed or barn and eat whatever they could get their hands on the next day.
One of these men is Michol Nescior, Catherine’s father and the other may be her uncle. According to family tradition, her father was killed in action in 1914 during WW1. Catherine would have been 19 and recently immigrated that year. His death in 1914 is significant as much of the heavy fighting on the war’s Eastern Front took place that year. As hostilities during WW1 unfolded, Russia invaded her forces advanced very close to Krakow before being beaten back. It is likely that he was killed during this initial phase of the Russian offensive. The next spring, heavy fighting occurred around Gorlice and Przemysl, to the east of Kraków in Galicia. In 1915 Polish territories were looted and abandoned by the retreating Imperial Russian army, trying to emulate the scorched earth policy of 1812; the Russians also evicted and deported hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants suspected of collaborating with the enemy. By the end of 1915, the Germans had occupied the entire Russian sector, including Warsaw. In 1916 another Russian offensive in Galicia, the home province of the Nescior’s exacerbated the already desperate situation of civilians in the war zone. During this time, about 1 million Polish refugees fled eastward behind Russian lines.
A total of 2 million Polish troops fought with the armies of the three occupying powers, 450,000 died and close to one million were wounded. Several hundred thousand Polish civilians were moved to labor camps in Germany, and 800,000 were deported by the Tsarist forces to the East. The scorched-earth retreat strategies of both sides left much of the war zone uninhabitable. Total deaths from 1914–18, military and civilian, within the 1919–1939 borders, were estimated at 1,128,000.
Catherine’s brother – either Michael or Frederik – killed during World War II.
Catherine’s cousin Elizabeth and her family. Catherine and Elizabeth immigrated together on the same ship (SS Kroonland) in 1912. Elizabeth moved to Philadelphia. These photographs of Elizabeth and her family were taken there. Our family has lost track of Elizabeth’s maiden and married name.
Elizabeth, Catherine Nescior and Catherine 
Elizabeth, Catherine and Catherine Nescior
More pictures of Catherine Nescior and her cousins Elizabeth and Catherine with whom she immigrated with to the United States.
Anna Nowak and her children 
Anna Nowak and her children
Anna Nowak and her children Bronislow and Stefania 
1958 postcard to my Uncle Walt from Anna in Poland 
Catherine’s sister and family 
After the war, when the communists took over Poland, Catherine would collect clothes to send to her sister in Poland. She would cut a slit in different places in the lining of the clothes and slip a five dollar bill inside. Anna had a code that would tell Catherine that she had received the money in the next letter that she wrote.
Unknown relative – labeled “Father Nicholas” 
Unknown relative in Poland, 1948 
Unknown relative from Poland
Unknown relative from Poland. Might be one of Catherine’s cousins.
Unkown relative. Probably Michael, Fredrick or both.